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Quote#Politics & Power

It is in the highest degree likely that the North will not be able to…

Quote byHenry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston · 1784–1865

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Sir Austen Henry Layard (20 October 1861) on the American Civil War, quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 552.

English (original)

It is in the highest degree likely that the North will not be able to subdue the south, and it is no doubt certain that if the Southern union is established as an independent state it would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures but the operations of the war have as yet been too indecisive to warrant an acknowledgement of the southern union.

— Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

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